


Touch

by quackers



Category: Buzzfeed Unsolved (Web Series), Watcher Entertainment
Genre: Asexual Character, Asexual Shane Madej, Emotions, Hand Jobs, Light Angst, M/M, Porn with Feelings, Quarantine, Set during the Covid-19 Quarantine, Touch-Starved
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-19
Updated: 2020-05-19
Packaged: 2021-03-02 18:28:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,010
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24261358
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quackers/pseuds/quackers
Summary: Ryan needs people.He needs Shane.But Shane might not need him in the same way.
Relationships: Ryan Bergara/Shane Madej
Comments: 19
Kudos: 306
Collections: I Love You May





	Touch

**Author's Note:**

> The depiction of asexuality written here is based loosely off of personal experiences and does not represent everyone. Communicate your preferences with your partners.

It should have been easy.

The quarantine should have been, at the very least, doable.

A couple of weeks of staying inside, encouragement to get delivery for every meal, and an excuse to stay in his sweats and glasses all day? Other than the mad scramble to figure out how to produce content while everyone was stuck in their respective homes, it sounded like something of a vacation.

Ryan knew he was being overly optimistic, because even the idea of trying to juggle everyone’s schedules so that they could show up at the Watcher offices to grab needed equipment without running into each other was headache-inducing. He really didn’t want to dwell on it.

And the biggest worry of being alone was completely negated when he had two roommates. It wasn’t the same as having a significant other to hang out with or being able to hug his family whenever he wanted, but his roommates were a couple of his best friends. It would be fine.

Or, it would have been fine if both of them hadn’t left three days in, one to stay with his girlfriend and the other to stay with his parents.

Ryan put a brave face on for a full week, sinking all of his restless energy into online networking, creating and editing whatever content he could from his laptop, and not going to sleep until three in the morning.

It was stressful, sure, but he had it handled. He totally had it handled.

He had it so well handled that when he texted Shane at noon on a Sunday, still drunk from the night before and working on keeping himself that way, he didn’t regret it in the slightest.

“Shane!” He shouted as soon as the surprise FaceTime call connected, holding his phone far above him to give Shane the best view. Not that he wanted to give Shane the best view, but- Fuck, no, he still wasn’t drunk enough for that thought. “How are you, buddy?”

Shane’s brows were down in a worried frown, his shirt one that Ryan recognized as something he wore to bed and his bandana still around his neck. It looked like the decision to call had come as soon as he had read Ryan’s text after waking up. “Holy shit, Ryan, it’s barely twelve. How much have you had to drink?”

“Just some beer,” Ryan lied easily. Then a vague sense of guilt hit him and he added in a mutter, “Some gin.”

“But you don’t like-” Shane cut himself off, tiredly rubbing one hand over his eyes. It pushed his glasses up and if one more shot happened, Ryan thought he might admit to himself that sleepy Shane was cute. “Ryan.”

Completely ignoring Shane’s tone, Ryan looked away from his phone, acting like he had anything else to occupy his attention. “I’ve had this bottle of gin for _years_ , it's the last liquor in the house."

“Why are you drinking the hard stuff before noon?”

“Just a little hair of the dog,” Ryan said as dismissively as he could. He didn’t say that he had only slept a couple of hours since last night’s binge. It didn’t seem important.

“Where are the other two Stooges?” Shane asked after a moment of weirdly tense silence, like he was expecting a roommate to pop up on the screen, equally drunk and hungover.

Ryan hesitated, surprised by the question. Surely he had told Shane-

No, he hadn’t. He remembered now. He hadn’t wanted Shane to worry about him. Not that he could remember _why_ he didn’t want the worry.

“Ah, they’re staying with other people.” Bored with holding the phone above him, Ryan brought it down to his chest, propping it up on his hand. Looking at the screen gave him a weird double chin, but it wasn’t like Shane hadn’t seen him at worse. Or was interested in him being attractive, so what did it matter? “I’m flying solo for this pandemic.”

Even to his own ears, his words sounded as bitter as they did slurred, but maybe Shane would think it was from the alcohol. Which it totally was, because he had everything handled.

Shane’s frown was quick and barely there, but Ryan had spent years and countless footage hours staring at the guy’s mug and learning his microexpressions. Genuine concern was something Ryan didn’t want to deal with, so he let his head thump back into the arm of the couch, closing his eyes against the spinning of the room.

“Drink some water.”

Ryan grunted something.

Shane sighed, though there was an edge of amusement to it. “Since I know what you’re like when you get like this, I’m going to call again in a couple of hours to make sure you’re alive. Drink water when you wake up.”

It seemed like too much effort to reply, so Ryan just grunted again.

He ignored the urge to call Shane back while the call ending sound was still in his ears. Instead, he let his phone fall to his chest, listening to the echoing emptiness of the house around him.

\----------

Shane called every day.

It was funny, because Ryan would have thought he would be the one to start such a practice. Shane was zen in a way Ryan knew was half a front, but if either of them could handle living alone for a couple of weeks, with no real outside contact, anyone with access to YouTube would know that it would be Shane.

But like clockwork, Shane was there at the start of the work day with that call, greeting Ryan with a head of messy, barely contained hair and a small smile that Ryan never failed to answer with one of his own. He privately suspected Shane had penciled ‘call Ryan to keep him sane’ into his daily schedule, and because of that suspicion, there was a small pit of shame in his stomach that he did his best to ignore.

In his better moments, though, he knew that their friendship was real and they just worked better next to each other. They enjoyed working next to and with each other. In a world of enforced distancing, that meant carrying his phone around like a 24-hour vlogger and yelling obscenities as loud as he could when Shane left his phone on the desk to go to the bathroom.

The nights of no sleep that plagued him often saw Ryan worried that he was nothing more than a burden to Shane, but he managed to keep that to himself.

Of course, by the third week, most of his insecurities had flown out the window, because there had been no reason for Shane to call him outside of work related purposes on a Saturday, but it had happened all the same.

“I can’t handle another month of this,” Ryan groaned, his head down on his desk. Every new announcement about social distancing and staying away from people was another blow to his psyche. “I’m going to go crazy. Absolutely bonkers. They’re going to pull me out of here gibbering like a lunatic. It’ll be straight to a hospital.”

“No one will know the difference,” Shane muttered absently, rebounding that easy setup like a champ. He didn’t even look up from whatever he was reading. “Maybe you’ll finally make more sense.”

Ryan grinned, glad his expression couldn’t be seen. “If I go, I’m finding a way to take you down with me.”

There was a long enough pause that Ryan lifted his head in time to catch a glimpse of Shane’s smile, a bare curve of lips that was unmistakably fond. “I know you would.”

Warmth spread through Ryan’s chest, a quick butterfly beat of his heart making him look away again.

For fuck’s sake, he had thought being away from Shane would make all those damn feelings easier to handle, not harder.

“I’m going to hug every single person I see after this,” Ryan rambled just to stop thinking about it.

“That’ll make your pervy old neighbor pretty happy. Your arms will finish her off.”

Ryan made a face at the unintentional innuendo, though he tucked away the offhand compliment to think about later. “Gross, dude. Maybe I’ll only hug friends.”

“Promise?”

Ryan blinked at the surface of his desk, stunned for a moment before he jerked his head up to see if Shane had meant that as flirtatiously as it had sounded. But the guy wasn’t even looking at his phone, still obviously engrossed in whatever he was looking at.

Right. That hadn’t been a come on. Of course it hadn’t.

“I’ll definitely steal my dogs.” It was easier to keep going than to respond to that.

“‘Your’ dogs?” Finally Shane was looking at him, his eyebrows up. “You may have the arms, but your mom could take you easily. All she’d have to do is give you a disappointed look.”

“For two of the best dogs in existence? I could face her.”

“No you couldn’t, momma’s boy.”

Well, he wasn’t exactly wrong.

“Anyways,” Ryan said, bringing it back on subject. The subject of how miserable he was. “I really need to touch someone.”

This time Shane was the one to make a face. “When you say it like that it sounds like a bad touch. Bad touch is a no-no.”

Ryan snorted. “C’mon, you know Tinder is probably going to crash from the number of people getting on just to-” he grinned even as Shane shot a look at him. “- get off.”

Shane shook his head, but Ryan was willing to take the triumph of the smile Shane wasn’t doing a good job of hiding. He easily ignored the edge of annoyance in the smile. Shane sometimes got weird about sexual jokes and he had learned to live with it.

Sitting up with a groan and raising his arms up to stretch them out, Ryan continued, “And at this point, I feel like I’d be scandalized by a hug. I’m starting to romanticize high-fives. A handshake might be too much for me to handle.” He paused. “Maybe I’ll get on Tinder.”

If he was being completely honest with himself- and only himself- he was romanticizing a hug with one very specific big-headed lug, but that was something he only allowed himself to think of late at night and drunk.

This time Shane’s quick frown was disturbingly genuine. “So that idea you had about a movie podcast.”

The subject change was jarring, but Ryan dismissed it. It wasn’t like he hated to talk about movies.

\----------

The worst was editing.

One more night is what he told himself. One more pass-through of the current video and he’d hand the rest off to the very competent people on their payroll, who had been hired for the very specific purpose of editing.

Watching footage of himself casually touch people was going to drive him to an early grave.

Watching footage of himself casually touching _Shane_ was going to be the cause of his spontaneous combustion. All they would find would be an outline of his charred remains and one bizarrely unburnt foot.

On the paused screen was an image of him smacking the back of his hand against Shane’s arm, staring up at the other man with a smile that was right on the verge of ‘loving’.

The problem wasn’t the stare. Ryan had given up years ago when it came to controlling his expressions around Shane. If Shane hadn’t noticed them by now, he wasn’t ever going to.

No, the problem was that Ryan couldn’t stop looking at that small point of contact. At the way his hand looked against Shane’s arm. The knowledge that he had taken such simple gestures as granted weighed heavily on him.

The skin above his knuckles felt sensitive.

If only he could remember that touch.

Ryan had grown so used to the sound of a call that he barely looked at his phone before accepting it. “What if I had been asleep?” he asked Shane as he propped his phone up next to his monitor. He saved his progress and finally minimized the paused screen.

“Then you wouldn’t have answered.” Shane was sitting in his bed, which was damn near cruel. “Are you seriously still working?”

“Like you didn’t just stop working twenty minutes ago?”

Shane inclined his head in a small nod, shrugging and smiling. “You can’t prove anything.”

Ryan snorted, some of his dour mood lifting. “You act like I wouldn’t look at timestamps just to prove a point.”

“You think I’d let you anywhere near my computer?”

“Oh that’s true, you have to keep your weird porn hidden.”

Shane rolled his eyes and let out a little huff of annoyance, dragging his fingers through his hair. It was loose and fell in tousled, messy strands.

Ryan rubbed the back of his hand and contemplated breaking social distancing just to commit illicit barbering, because all of that long hair was the worst kind of temptation.

“Ryan?”

It took Ryan a moment to realize that Shane had been talking, though he had no idea what it had been about. “What’d you say? Zoned out.”

“I noticed.” The screen wobbled and moved, then resettled, like Shane had just propped his phone up on his drawn up knees. “You okay?”

“Yeah, I’m-” Ryan paused in the middle of saying he was tired, his attention caught on the little line in the middle of Shane’s eyebrows and the downward tilt of his mouth. “I’m not,” Ryan said on an exhale, slumping over his desk. “I’m…I feel like shit. Mentally. Emotionally. I want a fucking hug. I thought I could handle living alone, but- Well. Obviously not.”

Shane made a noise, a word caught in his throat.

Continuing, Ryan sighed, “I know you can’t do anything about it, sorry to bring it up. I just needed to get it off my chest.”

“Come over.”

Ryan looked up from his intense study of his keyboard. “What?” He hesitated. “Like I sit in my car and shout at you from the road?”

“No, you should come live with me.” Shane was a little wide-eyed, but his expression was serious.

“Doesn’t that-” Ryan swallowed, pushing down the wild hope and the way his heart was starting to pound. “Doesn’t that kinda defeat the purpose of social distancing?”

Shane took a breath that would have been normal from anyone else but was a big tell for the guy. “I think we can risk infecting each other if we just stay together.”

‘Stay together’ echoed in Ryan’s head. “I don’t want to be a burden.” Any more than he already was.

“Ryan, you’re not going to last another week. And it doesn’t look like they’ll be lifting these restrictions any time soon. And, uh, the Professor could use some company.” Shane looked away from his phone, acting so casual that Ryan would have called him out on it on any other day.

He shouldn’t. He really shouldn’t.

“You sure?”

Shane glanced back towards his phone, mouth tilted in a surprisingly cheerful smirk. “Pack your bags, Bergara. I expect to see you bright and not too early tomorrow.”

“I’m going to bring my weights,” Ryan said, half as a joke and half as a challenge.

Shaking his head, Shane merely sighed.

\---------

Ryan stood in front of Shane’s door for at least five minutes without knocking, weirdly nervous for no good reason. It wasn’t like they hadn’t shared a place before. Sure, it had only been for a couple of days, but a hotel room was a lot closer quarters than an entire apartment was, so that had to mean something, right?

He thought about going back to his own place, seriously contemplating turning around and trying to brave out the next few weeks. Shane would understand, and the boundaries that Ryan had so far managed to observe would remain intact.

The heavy weight of dread at the idea of so many more days of enforced loneliness and the way his throat suddenly hurt from the idea of not touching anyone convinced him that while boundaries wouldn’t be crossed if he left, he would probably snap.

Swallowing the ache away, he knocked on Shane’s door a little harder than necessary, nerves making his arms tremble and his hand shake. Shit, what if Shane had changed his mind in the hour it had taken him to drive there?

It opened only seconds later and Ryan was inordinately relieved to realize that Shane had clearly been waiting for him.

“Thought I heard someone creeping around out here,” Shane said, unable to hide the way a smile kept threatening to appear. His eyes were bright, a soft brown in the light of the afternoon sun.

All of Ryan’s worried drained away for one blessed moment in the face of that obvious welcome. With none of Shane’s need to remain taciturn, Ryan had no problem with smiling as widely as he could; a small, giddy giggle escaping him.

A part of him wanted to drop his backpack on top of his duffel bag and tackle Shane, to wrap his arms around another living person and never let go. He restrained himself because he did have some self-control, damn it.

“Hey, man,” Shane said softly, holding his door open and tilting his head towards the inside of his apartment. “Get in here before someone realizes you’re breaking quarantine.”

Ryan picked up his duffel bag and slipped past Shane, all too aware of the brief brush of his shoulder against the underside of Shane’s arm. It had been no more than light pressure, but it was the best thing he had felt in weeks.

Including the singularly lackluster jerking off he had been doing lately.

Which wasn’t something he needed to be thinking about while Shane was following so closely behind him.

“I know you said the couch would be fine for you, but just let me know if you want to switch for a night and you can take my bed-”

Not thinking about that, either.

“-And you can put your stuff in the office, if you want, I moved some things around.” There was a long enough pause that Ryan stopped in the middle of the living room, twisting to look at Shane over his shoulder.

Shane's gaze was on the floor, his fingers wrapped in the rolled bandana that was around his neck, tugging at it. “Or, uh-” He coughed to clear his throat, hurrying along like he thought speaking faster would hide his hesitation from Ryan. “I cleared out a drawer in the bedroom if you want to use that.”

And for the first time in a very long time, Ryan felt hope.

Because there was no way that Shane would give a fuck about Ryan being in his bedroom if Shane didn’t care. If he wasn’t aware of whatever _thing_ there was in between them.

“Bedroom would be fine,” Ryan said, because pushing Shane was what he did. He had parlayed an entire career off it.

Shane nodded once and edged past him, leading Ryan like he hadn’t spent countless evenings there, getting drunk and watching truly shitty movies. Not that he had ever been in Shane’s bedroom more than once or twice, usually to borrow a pair of sweatpants when he was too drunk to go home.

Ryan dropped both of his bags in front of the set of drawers that Shane indicated, looking up at the guy with a smile that hadn’t gone away since Shane had first opened his door. “Hey, thanks for this. I already- I already feel better.” It felt like an emotionally vulnerable enough moment for it, so Ryan reached out to clap his hand on Shane’s arm, already anticipating the touch with an embarrassing amount of need.

Surprising the hell out of him, Shane tilted his body towards Ryan and opened his arms in an unmistakable gesture. There was no way Ryan was going to turn the unspoken offer down, and he launched into the hug with an eagerness that he didn’t bother to disguise. Not around Shane.

He went into the hug expecting it to be the kind of bro hug that was deemed acceptable between two guys, with their bodies angled away and heads firmly separated, hands staying at shoulder height.

Shane had apparently missed the memo. He dipped down, hunching over just enough that Ryan’s chin automatically hooked over his shoulder and he wrapped his long ass arms around Ryan’s back with no thought to what was or wasn’t acceptable. One of his hands was closer to Ryan’s ribs than his shoulder and Ryan slumped into it after a confused second, greedily taking what he could.

The faint exhale of amusement as Shane ended up taking some of Ryan’s weight whispered past Ryan’s ear and he closed his eyes, focusing on the warmth that exuded from every point of contact and the scratch of cloth under his chin.

He couldn’t help the way he clutched at Shane’s back, his fingers pressing into spine and muscle and bunching fabric from how hard he was holding on, but Shane wasn’t pulling away. If anything, he squeezed Ryan a little tighter.

Ryan let himself exist in the moment for as long as he could, but his usual anxiety began to crop up after a minute. He was never certain how obvious his feelings were for Shane and if he was taking something too far. His arms started to tremble in a rush of adrenaline but he didn’t let go right away, unwilling to step back until Shane did. He knew it had to be too much for the guy, but if he didn’t say anything…

Then Shane tucked his head into the crook of Ryan’s neck and Ryan was reasonably certain he had died. He froze, expecting Shane to change his mind, to realize what he had done and to whom and then to jerk away. It didn’t happen. Shane even began to lean into him until they were both supporting each other.

Gathering up his courage, Ryan moved his hand in a motion that was essentially petting, fitting his palm to the curve of Shane’s shoulder blade in a way that he never thought he would be able to.

“I missed you, big guy,” Ryan let out on a thin whisper, afraid to speak too loudly and ruin the moment.

Shane didn’t answer, but he didn’t need to.

\--------

“I’m out of popcorn.”

“Sucks to be you.”

Ryan nudged Shane with his elbow, jostling the man's body. They were pressed side to side far closer than the size of the couch warranted and half of him had long ago grown sweaty from the combined heat. He thought he was doing a pretty good job of ignoring both the sweat and the fact that they were very nearly cuddling, though. “Shane,” he whined, staring down into his empty bowl.

“Last time I checked, your legs worked.” Shane didn’t look away from where he was scrolling through movies on the TV’s selection screen, but his tone was nearly indulgent.

Letting out a dramatic sigh, Ryan sat the bowl down on the floor and then stretched out on the couch, his head falling back on the pillow he had been using for the past week and his legs splaying out over Shane's lap. It was fun to be a dick to Shane for no reason.

He grinned to himself when Shane pushed his legs off with a disgusted noise, expression long-suffering as he stood up and headed towards the kitchen. “It’s nearly one, do you really want more popcorn? Are we even going to watch something else tonight?”

“You sound like an old man. Is it past your bedtime?”

Shane paused as he walked behind the couch, laughing down at him with a fond cast to his eyes. He didn’t say anything. It was as if he had stopped just to look at Ryan.

It was times like this when Ryan thought he had an inkling of how much he meant to Shane.

All it would take was a lazy lift of the hand to touch him.

And Ryan wanted.

He wasn’t entirely conscious of the gesture as he reached for Shane’s stomach, his fingers barely brushing the fabric of Shane’s shirt.

He expected Shane to walk away, to have not noticed the movement that could have been nothing more than an absent stretch.

But Shane was completely still and Ryan couldn’t bring himself to meet his eyes. Instead he pressed that last centimeter forward. “I don’t trust your choice in movies after midnight.” His voice was thick in his throat, his words strained with a bare hint of the sudden want and need and confusion he was feeling.

Shane’s stomach moved under his hand with the man’s inhale, the soft shirt crushed into wrinkles under his palm. “Like some kind of movie gremlin?” Shane asked, a catch at the end of the question, like he was trying not to breathe too hard.

Ryan wanted to think that he didn’t know what possessed him to slide his hand down an inch, to rub his thumb over the shape of a plain buckle under the soft shirt, but he knew exactly what it was.

He wanted to touch. It was as simple as that. A five minute hug hadn’t been enough. Leaning together during a single movie hadn’t been enough.

And he was curious. Curious over what he was doing, what he was even planning, how Shane would react, if this step over the line would be too far or not far enough.

Would the dance they had been doing over the last year come to an end all because Ryan’s insecurities could be broken by a month of no contact? Or would the need to feel human contact make everything they had between them come crumbling down?

“Throw some water on me and I start making you watch all of the Air Bud movies?” Shane sounded like he was rambling but Ryan could barely pay attention. His entire being was focused on the sensations as he slipped his hand under Shane’s shirt and hooked his fingertips over the top of Shane’s waistband, the feelings shivering out to the rest of his body.

Shane’s breath stuttered, his voice going up in register, but he didn’t do anything to acknowledge what Ryan was doing, which was a dare in and of itself. “What am I saying, you love dogs, you probably think that a dog playing basketball is the peak of cinema-”

Ryan hummed absently, his cheeks hot and his heart pounding harder and harder. His knuckles pressed against Shane’s stomach, light indents into warm flesh and muscle, a slight give of softness that was the result of quarantine food and laziness. He could only find it devastatingly charming. He was all too aware of every single hair that rubbed against the sensitive skin of the backs of his fingers, that he was touching Shane in a way he had never thought of.

No, he had thought of it before. Countless times. More times than was healthy for a relationship with a _business partner_. But he had never considered the little details; the intimacy of feeling Shane’s breathing, the visceral knowledge of the trail of hair on his stomach, the creak of leather as he clutched at Shane’s belt.

Ryan risked a glance upward, near intoxicated with the image they must have made as he reclined along the length of the couch, reaching up to slip his hand into the pants of the man that towered over him from that particular angle.

Shane was staring down at him with eyes that had grown wide and dark, his mouth parted. He looked stunned. Surprised. There was unreadable anticipation in his gaze.

Seeing Ryan’s look, Shane licked his lips, his words ghosting out on a laugh that was more shy and nervous than anything Ryan had heard from him. “Are you even paying attention to me?”

Chest tight, adrenaline seeping through his veins, Ryan pushed his fingers further into the tight fit between belt and skin. He spared a wild thought of brief concern when his fingernails caught on hair, but he lost that thought when he felt the shift in hair texture to something curled and coarse, the slightest change of angle in the flesh that pressed against his knuckles.

“Dude,” Ryan finally found his voice, though it strangled him as his stomach churned in ways that were nearly pleasant. “I’m really close to touching your dick.”

Shane’s incredulous laugh was fascinating to feel, jumping under his knuckles. “Yeah, you sure fucking are.”

Swallowing hard, Ryan started to pull his hand back. He _wanted_ , and he thought maybe Shane did too, but he hadn’t asked.

Shane made a pained noise, then leaned forward. It was no more than an inch, but it stopped Ryan cold. “Wait,” he said, sounding nearly as strangled as Ryan felt. “You can- You _can_. If you want.”

If Ryan had been younger, he would have taken that tentative offer at face value, plunging full steam ahead without a thought for consequences. But he was older now. He had seen a few things, listened to stories, talked to friends, and most of all, he had gotten better at listening.

He had gotten better at listening to _Shane_ , who always kept his emotions hidden behind a facade of calm and humor.

It was hard to tell if the strain in Shane’s voice was from excitement or hesitation, but judging by the way he wouldn’t meet Ryan’s eyes, Ryan didn’t like his odds.

He couldn’t quite make himself let go of Shane’s belt, though. It creaked under his grip. “Do _you_ want?” Ryan asked in a hushed whisper, irrationally afraid that if he spoke too loud, he would scare Shane away. And he couldn’t handle that. Not now, when he finally had a chance at this.

Shane closed his eyes in a long blink, breathing in once through his nose. It was a way to steady himself and Ryan didn’t like that he felt the need. “I…”

“Don’t worry about it-” Ryan said, the adrenaline turning sour in his stomach as he fought to swallow past a lump in his throat. He finally convinced his fingers to unhook from Shane’s belt and to pull back.

Only to have Shane flatten his hand over Ryan’s, trapping Ryan’s fingers against his belly button, his shirt ruched up to reveal a glimpse of hair that Ryan now knew the scratch of. “Look, I- You can, if you want. I’m not stopping you.”

That only made Ryan feel like he was going to throw up. And not a little offended. A scowl twitched over his mouth as he glared up at Shane. “‘I’m not stopping you’ isn’t exactly enthusiastic consent. I’m not- I don’t want you to offer yourself up like some virgin sacrifice because you feel bad for me.”

Shane made a frustrated noise, his brows furrowed into his own glare that looked more worried than angry. “I’m not against you touching me,” he said it like he was mad, but his expression had already become oddly open in a way it rarely was. “I just don’t know where this is going to lead.”

“Do you think I know?” Ryan had to ask, plaintive. The low simmering arousal had never gone away and he shifted guiltily, not happy with the fact that Shane was clearly uncomfortable and yet a part of his brain was still giddily cataloguing the weight of Shane’s hand over his. “You act like I have some grand seduction technique centered around putting my hand down your pants, but I just wanted to touch you. So I did.” He didn't say that he was probably going to have a small breakdown later, but he thought Shane knew him well enough to know that it was implied. "There's no plan."

Mouth quirking into a small smile, Shane shook his head, muttering, “You’re right, I give you too much credit.”

Against his will, Ryan felt his own mouth curl into an answering reluctant smile. “Shut up, Shane.”

They stared at each other for a long moment and Ryan was keenly aware of how his thumb was now tucked back under Shane’s belt. Tired of having such an emotional conversation while laying down, he slowly sat up, glancing down to see the way Shane’s free hand was gripping the back of the couch like he needed the support.

“I kinda just wanted to touch your dick once I realized how close I was,” Ryan blurted out, the silence finally getting to him. His face was warm, but all he could offer was the earnest truth. “That was all I was thinking about.”

Shane’s expressions took an interesting journey as he started to laugh and then grimaced, the tilt of his head wry. “Just bros being bros?”

“Give me a little credit, dude.”

“Not going to try and no homo your way out of this?”

Ryan frowned, intentionally sliding his thumb down into wiry curls. Even in the midst of the uncomfortable atmosphere, the touch still sent a jolt of adrenaline through him. “Dude,” he said again, raising his eyebrows pointedly.

Shane let out a short breath through his nose and looked away, his palm starting to grow clammy on the back of Ryan’s hand.

“Let’s just go back to watching a movie,” Ryan offered, some of his blood making the journey back into his brain. It had occurred to him that Shane hadn’t actually said ‘no’, and while he thought Shane would do a lot for a friend, he didn’t think the guy would have a problem with stopping him. So there was another issue, one he hadn’t thought of. That slow dawning epiphany let him feel like maybe he still had a place here, in Shane’s apartment, but beyond that, he had no idea.

Fists clenching briefly at his side, Shane shook his head, letting out a shaking sigh. “It’s really hard to think with half your hand in my pants- _No_ ,” he practically squeaked as Ryan tried to tug his hand back. “Give me a second to- To explain.”

It went silent again, so silent that the rustle of clothing was oddly loud when Ryan moved his other hand up to rest it on Shane’s hip. But Shane didn’t flinch and Ryan took that as a good sign.

Ryan thought he was going to vibrate out of his skin from nerves and impatience by the time Shane leaned forward, bending at the waist and pulling Ryan’s arm over the back of the couch because he didn’t think to let go of Shane’s belt. “This isn’t how I thought this would go,” Shane muttered, pausing far enough away that it was clear he wasn’t going in for a kiss, though Ryan had briefly, wildly, hoped for it.

Shane settled his hands on Ryan’s shoulders, but Ryan nearly didn’t notice the weight because he was stuck on all of the implications. “Wait, you’ve thought about this?”

“I figured you’d be drunk-”

“You mean with _me_?”

“The couch didn’t really figure into it-”

“I thought you were straight and that’s why you’re acting like some kind of martyr,” Ryan hissed, wide-eyed and giving voice to the wild thought that had been battering at his conscience for the last few minutes.

“Straight is as straight does,” Shane said inanely, his thumbs sliding up either side of Ryan’s neck in a smooth, petting glide. “Ryan, I don’t give a fuck how close we are, I wouldn’t cuddle _anyone_ , man or woman, for an entire movie, if I wasn’t willing to slide into those DMs.”

There was a peculiar emphasis on ‘willing’ that Ryan didn’t know how to take apart.

“You’ve been in my DMs for years, all you had to do was say something.” Ryan tilted his head up, half-hoping that there was a chance yet for that kiss.

Shane looked away, thoughtful instead of hurtful when he said, “I didn’t want to.”

The world fell away for one agonizing second, emptiness rushing in Ryan’s ears, a heavy, horrible ache pooling into his stomach. “Oh,” he managed to croak, unsurprised to realize there were already tears welling up at the corners of his eyes.

Shane froze for an instant, then frantically squeezed Ryan’s shoulders, like he thought that would snap him out of it. “Shit, damn it, no, I just mean I’m not into anyone like that. I’m not getting up into any DMs, yours or someone else’s.”

“You’re not?” Ryan blinked tear-laden lashes in surprise. “But-”

“I’m dropping the metaphor,” Shane said with a grimace, hunching forward until his forehead was resting on Ryan’s, forcing Ryan to finally let go of his belt entirely. He was too close to really see and it was easier for Ryan to close his eyes and listen to Shane’s deep breath and strained voice. “I’m not into sex. I’m- Well, I _was_ hard earlier, because nerves and excitement and the body sometimes does what it wants, and you could have, uh, had your way with me and it would have been fun, but what about tomorrow? What about next week? You’d be disappointed in me and…” He trailed off, shrugging listlessly. There was a shade of genuine distress in his voice and the faint triumph of getting Shane to _react_ was marred by the guilt of making him feel anything negative.

Ryan swallowed all of the half-jumbled words and phrases that wanted to pour out of his mouth and forced himself to sit and think about what Shane had said. To turn over what it did and didn’t mean and to add it to what he knew about Shane and how the guy handled things. Especially emotions. And he took the opportunity to ponder what he thought about it.

The sound of their breathing intermingling was soothing, and he chose to focus on that to calm his tone before he started speaking.

“Shane,” he said softly, wrapping his fingers around Shane’s wrist. He didn’t bother to hide his own fond exasperation. “I just wanted to jerk you off. I wasn’t planning on bringing out a ring.”

Shane’s laugh was barely more than an amused exhale, but it was there all the same.

“I don’t… I don’t expect anything,” Ryan said. It was only half truthful, maybe, but he was confident that he knew his own psyche well enough to know that he cared way more about love than he cared about constant sex. Not that he was going to drop the L word right now.

Maybe tomorrow.

“You say that now, but-”

“I’m only now realizing that you might be okay with any kind of a relationship,” Ryan interrupted, squeezing Shane’s wrist. “One that isn't platonic." He thought he could be forgiven for the sarcasm he put in the last word. "Let’s take it a couple days at a time first, okay? We can figure it out together as we go.”

Shane swallowed, then gave a slight nod.

“Christ, big guy,” Ryan continued, “You really are just a big tangle of emotions under all that repression, aren’t you?”

“Don’t tell anyone,” Shane whispered.

Unable to stop himself, Ryan grinned, pulling back enough to meet Shane’s eyes. They were a warm brown that glimmered with, if he wasn’t mistaken, a hint of moisture. Perversely, it made him feel better to know that Shane really did care. “Gonna tell the whole world.”

Shane’s smile was lopsided. It felt like gravity for Ryan when his gaze flickered down to Shane’s mouth. “I’ve never kissed someone with a beard before.” The sentence was hopeful, but he tried to imbue all of his understanding in it as well. The ball was in Shane’s court, and if he understood what he thought he understood, he wasn’t going to push for more than the guy was willing to give.

“The beard is non-negotiable,” Shane returned, mock stern over his obvious relief that Ryan was changing the subject to something slightly less fraught. “Especially for someone who was angling for a handy J before even giving me the decency of a dinner.”

Ryan snickered, but tried his most teasing expression anyways, because daring Shane into kissing him felt no different than daring him into anything else.

“My back is killing me,” Shane complained, but his tone was wondering, and Ryan met him with an eagerness that he restrained as best he could when they both leaned forward those last few inches.

The beard was softer than he was expecting, which was all he could really focus on for a long moment, the gentle scratch of it around his mouth and chin something that he had no real comparison to. Except perhaps going down on a woman, in a distant kind of way, which did nothing to help the boner that was already trying to perk up again.

Then he registered the press of lips and tease of moisture and he couldn’t stop a quiet groan. He slid up to his knees, hooking the fingers of both hands into Shane’s belt again and tugging until the man’s thighs hit the back of the couch. As much as Ryan tried to go slow, to keep it as chaste as his eagerness would allow him, the change in angle turned the kiss filthier, and for someone who professed to not be into sex, Shane had no problem with kissing like he was planning on peeling Ryan out of his clothes and doing fun and nasty things to him.

Each movement of lips and swipe of tongue sent a thrill through Ryan’s body, his stomach tightening and his ears hypersensitive to the wet sounds of their mouths moving together and the harsh breathing they were doing through their noses. His dick was an insistent, needy weight, and he couldn’t bring himself to be embarrassed about how responsive he was to the feel and sight and taste of Shane anymore.

He had been conscientious about keeping his hands at the hollow under Shane’s ribs, even though his palms practically ached with the need to touch as much he could get away with, but Shane was the one to grab ahold of one hand and push it down in a way that was less of a hint and more of a neon sign to go ahead.

Still, he wanted to be sure.

“Shane?” he muttered, snickering when he got a couple pieces of hair in his mouth. Maybe he was glad he had never tried to do a full beard.

Taking a deep breath, Shane leaned back like he was going to meet Ryan’s eyes, but his gaze was off to the side, his face once again flushed. “If you want to explore a little, I’m uh, up to the task.”

Even looking away, he still wiggled his eyebrows at ‘up’.

“I’m getting mixed signals,” Ryan said even as he tucked his thumb under the flap of the belt, slowly working it out of the loop. “You’re not into this but you’re telling me to go wild?”

Shane’s eyes were dark as he kept glancing towards Ryan and then away. His blush had overtaken his entire face and Ryan wondered how far down it went. “I like touch as much as the next guy,” he said, damn near mumbling. “I just don’t really, uh…” He made some kind of gesture with one hand, then drug his fingers through his hair. “You know. I don’t often reach the final event.”

Ryan blinked and took a second to untangle that. “You don’t come?”

Shane jerked his shoulder in a twitchy shrug. Then he saw Ryan’s expression and he brought both hands up to cup Ryan’s face. “Please don’t take that as a challenge,” he said with a waver in his voice “I’m done with dealing with that kind of frustration with partners.”

It was _hard_ to tamp down that initial rush of planning that was already happening in the filthier corners of Ryan’s mind, his competitive nature rising up and telling him that just because others couldn’t make it happen, didn’t mean he wouldn’t figure out a way.

Shane’s hands were warm and his eyes were vulnerable in a way Ryan had never seen from him before. It made all of those thoughts go quiet.

He swallowed. “Alright,” he breathed, his free hand flexing against Shane’s lower belly. “What can I do? What’s on the table?”

With another shrug, Shane let go of Ryan’s face and reached down to unbuckle his belt and undo his pants. His quiet hum was unmistakably nervous as he started to undo his zipper, then stopped. The sudden grin was real, if strained. “Wait, I should let you unwrap your present, right?”

Ryan mock-glared before an idea struck him and he leaned forward, pushing Shane’s shirts up. He got his mouth on Shane’s stomach before the guy could react, and while his original urge had been to blow a raspberry, that was quickly forgotten as soon as the reality of soft, warm skin met his lips. Shane startled, then went still, his breath once again held like he was afraid to move.

Reveling in the feeling and the smell of clean skin and the prickle of small hairs, Ryan opened his mouth and licked once. He felt powerful when Shane jumped. “You didn’t answer me,” he mumbled against the give of Shane’s stomach. The reminder was punctuated with a gentle pinch of flesh between teeth.

“Just- Whatever you want?” Shane slipped his one hand over Ryan’s shoulder; a light skim of pressure. He helpfully took ahold of the bottom of his shirts to hold them out of Ryan’s way. “It all feels okay, I just don’t get all that, uh, excited over it.”

It was only a little bit disappointing that he apparently wasn’t ticklish.

Ryan tugged down on Shane’s pants, his heart in his throat and his extremities tingling from the sheer overwhelming nature of seeing two more inches of skin and wiry hair from so close. “Whatever I want? That’s how you get into weird situations, dude.”

“Ryan, your idea of kinks is so far off base that I feel pretty safe with whatever you might cook up in that brain of yours.”

Scowling, though it was a half-hearted response at best with most of his attention on the line of hair being revealed, Ryan shot back, “Maybe I’m into some really crazy shit, you don’t know.”

“Maybe,” Shane repeated, obviously humoring him.

Rather than continue that particular line of discussion, Ryan made the executive decision to focus back on the more important matters at hand. Not that he didn’t enjoy bantering with Shane, but sometimes other things took precedent.

Like the way the elastic of Shane’s boxers was curved tight over the base of what was obviously a semi-hard _dick_. One more tug and a line would definitely be crossed, because Ryan knew that if he saw even a centimeter of Shane’s junk, there’d be no going back. No pretending.

Maybe they should have talked it out more. They should have sat down and had a long, thorough discussion about expectations and fears and how they would plan to move forward.

On the other hand, Ryan was horny as hell and so fucking curious that he was pretty certain he would pass out if he didn’t get a chance to keep going.

So he jerked Shane’s pants down with a decisive yank, unable to hide the noise he made at the back of his throat or the fact that he had to pause just to stare. Ryan glanced up at Shane, momentarily stunned by all the different things he could do, that he _wanted to do_ \- and there went the faint worry that he wouldn’t be interested in another guy’s dick- and quietly asked, voice dry and shaken, “Anything?”

Shane’s fingers slid up Ryan’s neck, surprisingly steady. He met Ryan’s gaze and quirked a rueful smile. “Well don’t bite it.”

Ryan snorted, then winced at the idea. He ignored all of his nerves and wrapped his hand around Shane’s dick, stroking once just to get the feel of it. It was hot and thick in his palm and he had to wonder just what it would look like if Shane was fully hard instead of half chubbed. He both marveled at and was disappointed by the realization that it felt just like touching his own dick but from a weird angle.

Then he thought ‘fuck it’ and grabbed Shane’s hips to pull him forward until his thighs hit the back of the couch. Even with his long legs, Shane had to go on his toes to keep his dick above the couch, and he let out a quiet yelp as he tried to balance on Ryan’s shoulder. “I can’t- What are you- _Ah_ -”

Huh.

So that was what a dick tasted like.

It was an interesting experience, heavy on his tongue and somehow smoother than he had expected. He sucked the head into his mouth, ridiculously turned on by the whispered ‘Fuck’ that he heard at the action. Without thinking about it, he tightened his hold on Shane’s hips before sliding one hand further back to palm one buttcheek. He practically giggled when Shane actually squeaked, the laugh garbled by the dick in his mouth.

“Fuck’s sake, Ryan- I- Fuck, we gotta change this set up, I’m going to fall over.”

Pulling back to give the head another lick, Ryan’s stomach went tight as he watched Shane back away, suddenly floundering because he had no idea what to do now. He would have gladly tried sucking Shane off if that was something the guy wanted, but if he didn’t-

“We don’t have to do anything else. Or we could just make out. I wouldn’t exactly hate that.”

“Okay,” Shane said, not in agreement but psyching himself up for something. He stepped out of his pants and pulled his shirts off in a business-like manner. He was down to socks and Ryan would have said something about that, but Shane was already rounding the corner of the couch and leaning down to kiss him messily. “You look like you’re going to snap. You’re wearing too many pants.”

“I’m wearing one pants-”

“Too many, get them off.”

Ryan wasn’t going to argue with that and managed to wiggle out of both sweats and briefs without overthinking it, bracketed the entire time by Shane’s presence. He had barely gotten his pants off one leg when Shane was suddenly straddling him, surprisingly unabashed about his nudity.

“Shane-”

“Hey now, I’m not so rude as to leave you hangin’,” Shane said with a mischievous smirk. His chest was flushed and his body a long line of naked skin that Ryan only had a moment to appreciate before Shane took ahold of his dick and started jerking him off without any kind of preamble.

Head hitting the pillow with an oof, Ryan gasped, losing any and all coherency that he might have once had. Maybe it was because it had been so long since someone had touched him, maybe it was because it was _Shane_ , but the tight grip smoothed only by his own precome felt so good that he could only lay there and take it for a moment.

Shane braced himself with his free hand next to Ryan’s shoulder, leaving almost no room between their bodies for the movement of his hand. He pressed down to catch Ryan’s mouth in a kiss that was all tongue and teeth and wild, desperate breathing. The couch wasn’t big enough for what they were trying to do, but Ryan couldn’t care less that all it would take was some overbalancing and they would both fall off onto the floor.

He took the opportunity to get his hands on Shane’s body, running his hands up and down Shane’s long back and strong shoulders, captivated by the tension and flex of muscle with each stroke. He would have never guessed in any of his furtive fantasies how defined the man’s back muscles were.

Arousal raced through him when he was hit by the sudden thought that _Shane_ was the one jerking him off.

 _Shane_ was the one licking into his mouth and getting naked for him and inviting him into his home and telling him something intensely personal and-

 _Holy shit_.

“Faster,” Ryan gasped out against the corner of Shane’s mouth, his orgasm approaching like a storm. His whole body was electrified and he grabbed at Shane’s ass, pushing down, thrusting into Shane’s fist and wanting to feel the man’s weight on him, the friction of skin against the tip of his dick.

Like a complete ass, Shane sat up. Ryan whined at the loss of weight and the change in angle, about to start swearing.

Shane sent him a fucking _wink_ and then curled forward just enough to get his mouth on Ryan’s nipple.

A scrape of teeth over sensitive flesh and Ryan came with a strangled, choked cry, arching up against Shane so hard and suddenly that the guy stumbled off of him and teetered over into an abrupt sitting position on the floor.

They stared at each other wide-eyed, both panting heavily and trembling, Ryan’s jizz dripping in a haphazard pattern across Shane’s chest and a part of the couch.

Then they burst into laughter, Shane leaning against the couch and making a disgusted face at the mess on himself before breaking into harder laughter.

“God, I love you,” Ryan said, too elated and relaxed in post-coital bliss to really think about what he was saying.

Shane stared at him, startled. His laughter fell quiet.

Enough time passed that Ryan started to sit up, to try and take the declaration back, but Shane smiled at him, soft and fond. “There’s no one else I’d rather go through a global pandemic with,” he whispered like he was sharing a secret. “Love you, too, Ryan.”

**Author's Note:**

> Perhaps not as polished as I would like it to be, but hey, have something vaguely personal. (Thank you to the usual suspects.)
> 
> Thank you all for your support and feel free to come yell at me at [ Mephsation. ](https://mephsation.tumblr.com/)
> 
> <3


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